World building and Villains

So I am back on the world building bandwagon and I have to say it is one of the most disappointing facets of 5E. Unlike DnD 3.5, 5E severely lacks the scope of source books devoted towards world building. This had resulted in me falling back on reading some 3.5 books. However sourcing the physical copies of 3.5 books is next to impossible.

A group of books i would like to find physical copies of are Gary Gygax's world building books. He had a great one on just naming things. 

The final book that I have heavily relied on is a book about generating a magical medieval society. It explains how to calculate populations, design urban communities and even the layout of cities.

So for the campaign I just started for the fellow graduates at work, I have thrown together the region where the campaign will take place. I have used the above resources to populate the region and calculated the number and sizes of the cities and towns, the number of nobles and gentry, and a general outline for the first small town the players will gravitate towards.

The harder task at this stage is to come out with villains and plots for players to interact with. I have a little bit of an idea what I want one of plots to be, however I'm struggling to come up with bad guys I like. I think this is partly cause I want them to have personality. Towards this, I think I will base them off real people I know, but with slight twists to make them suitable for a fantasy setting.